by David Cline
Fin had begged to stay with Amara. He was just as passionate about setting history straight as she was. His funds however were drained, and Danville could only get the green light to fund one temporary employee. Apparently, Stalbridge had bitten his cigar in half when Danville had even suggested it. Something about his staff continually going rouge. Amara wished Fin could have stayed. She was confident in her abilities, but still felt vulnerable when she traveled alone.
Necochea was a small coastal town with a population of only about 65,000. During the summer, when tourists from all around the world flocked in, the population almost doubled. Amara spotted the high-rise hotels a few blocks away and began to make her way toward them.
As she drew nearer the coast, the scenery and ambience changed. Restaurants and small cafes were abundant. Street corners bustled with groups enjoying the pleasant evening breeze. Street traffic grew heavy as taxis and motorbikes negotiated the narrow streets.
She checked into a tall hotel that bordered the beach and requested a room with a view of the ocean. She was given a room on the fifth floor a few doors down from the central elevators. She opened the blinds and saw a lovely white beach which extended out of view in both directions. Long rows of pointed tents offered shade and lounging chairs for the crowds, which speckled the coastline.
She debated whether to venture out and enjoy the early signs of the sunset. She checked the time. Danville was meant to video conference at seven-thirty. She sat on the bed cross legged and fired up the laptop. On the receipt the front desk had given her, she looked for the Wi-Fi password. She rolled her eyes when she saw it was the name of the hotel. They obviously placed importance on their network security.
She had just opened her email when the notification of an incoming call distracted her. She accepted the request and soon Danville’s familiar tired face materialized in front of her. He was wearing the same shirt she’d seen him wear the past few days. Their friendship had not yet blossomed into the realm of banter, so she vetoed the desire to ask about it.
“Looks like you are comfortable,” Danville said. “You made it to Necochea then?”
Amara nodded. “The bus ride was a little over an hour. The countryside was beautiful and tranquil. Although, I am more likely to run across a rodeo than an indigenous village.”
Danville smiled. “A lot of people who have never visited South America have a lot of misconceptions of what it’s like.”
“Have you heard from Wood or Wilkins yet?” she asked.
Danville shook his head. For a moment, he looked worried. “I am expecting contact from them anytime.” He turned around and typed quickly at his keyboard. “Now,” he said. “There is a surprising amount of information about Hitler in South America. I am shocked that historians haven’t been bothered to look at the evidence.”
“What do you have?” Amara inquired. She held down the key that increased the volume.
Danville held up a disorderly stack of papers. “In Warsaw in 1947, former member of the SS and Luftwaffe, Captain Peter Baumgart, was on trial for his crimes. He gave detailed testimony of being the pilot who flew Hitler, along with his wife Eva Braun, Hitler’s dog Blondi, and trusted associates out of Berlin on the night of the 30th of April, 1945.”
“How?” Amara asked. “By the 30th of April, 1945, the Red Army had surrounded Berlin. All airports would have been under the Soviets control or been under a storm of heavy artillery.”
“On the Hohenzollern Damm road,” he said. “Which, at the time, was a wide boulevard conducive for the arrival and departure of small aircraft.”
“What happened to the pilot in court?” she asked.
“He was declared insane and sent away for psychiatric analysis.” Danville shook his head as though such a verdict should instead indict the judge for blatant incompetence. “Six months later, and after being declared unquestionably sane, he was held until 1951 and then released. The trail goes cold after that. No one knows what happened to him.”
“What did Baumgart say in his testimony?” Amara asked.
“That he flew them to the former imperial Zeppelin base in Denmark,” Danville said. “Upon arrival, Hitler ordered him to immediately return to Berlin. There are numerous testimonials from people at the base who witnessed the arrival. From there, Hitler flew south to Reus Spain in a long-range Ju 252 of KG 200. From Spain, they headed to Fuerteventura, which at the time was a Nazi naval base in the Canary Islands.”
“From there, he boarded a submarine headed to the western hemisphere,” Amara concluded.
“It was called operation Seawolf.”
“Why has the account of Hitler committing suicide in the bunker become the accepted history?” Amara asked. “There is so much evidence saying otherwise.”
“In November 1945, Stalin and other high-ranking officials within the Soviet Union had publicly stated their concern that Hitler had escaped west. The British head of counterintelligence ordered a medieval historian by the name of Trevor Roper to investigate the circumstances of Hitler’s death. Throughout his research, he relied on the testimonies of hundreds of Canadian, American and British intelligence officers.”
Amara wrinkled her nose. “That would be like relying on the testimony of reporters at a crime scene,” she said. “At best, they could only pass on what they had heard. Rumors that were passed on as fact.”
“Exactly,” Danville said. “Roper had no access to the Soviets who were actually there. Or any of the evidence they had confiscated. With the information he did collect, he wrote a book called The Last Days of Hitler. That work has become the accepted history of what happened the last few days of the war.”
Amara shook her head. How could anyone not have looked into the matter further? Sounded like a lot of ungrounded speculation had become accepted as popular history. “So, after Hitler boarded the U-boat in Fuerteventura, what happened?”
Danville shrugged. “That is where you pick up the trail,” he said. “I have heard that mountains of reports and information exist with details of the Nazi’s in South America. The only problem is they are all in Spanish and buried in dusty basements. They haven’t been translated or digitally copied.” He frowned. “Hacking into a physical collection of old documents is impossible at this point in time. Even for me. I need you there, reporting back to me what you find.”
“Where should I start?”
Danville disappeared for a moment and then returned holding a few pages, which he sorted through. “Anywhere that keeps records going back to the 1940’s. Check out the municipality, library, police station, anywhere you think there is a chance.”
“Sounds good,” Amara said. “I’ll get back to you tomorrow night and let you know what I find.”
“Good luck.”
Amara tossed and turned throughout the night. She got up and turned the air conditioning off because she was too cold. An hour later she got up and turned it back on because she was too hot. Somewhere in between shallow dreams, she must have fallen asleep.
The next morning, she shouldered her backpack and exited the hotel. She stopped by a local café ran by an Italian couple and ate breakfast. She decided to try her luck first at the library. It was a short taxi ride. The building reminded her of the Alamo in Texas. Thick bars covered all the windows. The assistants were kind, but she knew right away there was not going to be anything there that could help her.
Next, she tried the city hall. After getting directions, she walked a few blocks and arrived at the Palacio Municipal. The two-story building was regal and palatial. It looked more like a converted mansion than a public hall. The woman who greeted her, however, had cold eyes. She was greying and made no qualms about her dislike for Amara. She scowled when Amara tried to explain, in broken Spanish, what she was looking for. In a slow and condescending tone, the woman said that she could not help her and gestured toward the door. Without any recourse, she left with sunken shoulders. Amara had some choice words for the woman but did not vocalize them until
she was outside.
Her last stop was the police station. The building was situated on a corner. It looked more like a castle with a large tower in the middle. The walls were painted white, the top blue. On the second floor, quaint little balconies accompanied a rectangular door every few feet. The windows were all arched and contained panes of glass separated by wooden squares.
Amara located the entrance and stepped inside. The reception area was quiet. A portly man with a greasy mustache sat behind a tall counter. Some of the walls were beginning to crumble. There had been some obvious improvements over the years, but the building looked as old as time itself. She guessed it had definitely been around during the 1940’s.
She approached the man who looked up at her in surprise. He glanced behind her, as if expecting someone else to arrive.
“Vine a preguntarte si podía ver tu viejo archivo,” she said.
The man just stared at her with blank eyes. There was an awkward silence and then she asked him again. She had no idea if she was being understood. She tried to think of another Spanish word for archives. Maybe it was her accent. She knew it was not great. Before she could try again, the man stood up and leaned over the counter.
“Que quieres con ellos?” he asked.
She wanted to explain that she was an archeologist, and that she was trying to research something that happened here long ago. She looked up at him and tried her best to explain.
He looked behind him and then back toward the front door. Amara followed his gaze with a confused expression. Then he reached out and touched her hand. In a voice a hair above a whisper, he spoke quickly. She did not understand the words but understood the general idea and snatched her hand away, repulsed.
“Not a chance in hell, buddy.” She retreated a few steps back toward the door and turned to leave. Her hand was on the doorknob when she turned back around. The man had a disappointed look on his face but had returned his attention to the work on his desk.
Amara swore under her breath and walked back toward him. He looked up excited until he saw her expression and then his face sagged. She pulled a $100 bill out of her backpack and slapped it on the counter. The language barrier was irrelevant at this point. Both knew exactly what the unspoken agreement was.
He looked down at the bill and then behind him toward a closed door. Amara guessed that was where his commanding officer was. She could almost see the cogs spinning as he weighed the pros and cons in his head. He held up two fingers. Amara rolled her eyes and then placed a second bill on the counter.
The man pocketed them in a quick motion and gestured for her to join him on the other side of the counter. She followed him down an old hallway. His pace was brisk, and she was forced to jog to keep up. They must have not cared about what the building looked like beyond the reception area because she saw signs of severe deterioration. Large sections of missing plaster exposed crumbling bricks beneath. Jagged cracks ran through them like fault lines.
They walked down a flight of stairs and stopped at an ancient looking door. If the wood had ever been painted it did not show. There was a keyhole, but rust had rendered it unusable. The man pushed it open and looked down at his watch.
“Tienes una hora,” he said.
He waited until she had entered before quickly shutting the door behind her. She hoped an hour would suffice to find what she needed. Inside, a spiral staircase descended into darkness. Amara rummaged through her backpack until she found her headlamp. A few of the steps in front of her were missing. She gripped the railing that was more rust than metal. When she got to the bottom, she saw the floor was sprinkled with debris that had fallen from the ceiling. Green patches of moss grew on the dark brick wall. Her hand fumbled along the cold uneven surface until she found a switch. A few bulbs, all connected by a single wire, were stapled along the ceiling and glowed with a soft orange light. The floor looked like it had been a cobblestone street at some point. There were even potholes.
She turned a corner and saw shelves on both sides rising from the floor to the ceiling. They were so overcrowded with files and boxes that many had fallen to the floor. The pathway between them was narrow, and she was forced to shuffle through sideways. She wasted no time trying to determine if there was any kind of organization method, or if everything had been placed at random.
After examining numerous documents, she noticed a pattern. The dates got older the farther she went. Whoever ventured down here to store everything probably wanted to get in and out as fast as possible. She followed the trail of bulbs until she reached a blank brick wall marking the end. There was no doubt, the contents along the shelves were older. Wooden boxes had decades of water damage that had left a burnt look.
Amara pulled down a box and studied the files. The record keeping had been a lot more professional back in the day. The penmanship was immaculate, and the documents filed neatly. The date on top was 1914. A little too early. She replaced it and shambled back until she spotted an interesting graphic etched on a wooden box high above her head. She studied the rotting shelves and deliberated whether they could sustain her weight or not. Curiosity got the better of her. She cleared enough space for both feet and raised herself until she had the box in her grasp. The boards groaned in protest. She grimaced half expecting to get buried in an avalanche of paper.
Safe back on the ground, she took a deep breath and blew the dust away. Her heartbeat quickened when she saw the Argentina flag carved into the wood. The sun in the center had been replaced with a swastika surrounded by a golden wreath. She had seen it somewhere before but could not quite remember where. She wrenched it open and rummaged through the folders. A police report caught her eye and she extracted it. The date at the top was July 27, 1945. Thankfully, she could read Spanish a lot better than she could speak it.
The report had been filed by the police commissioner at the time, Don Luis Mariotti. Amara translated it in her head as she read.
“On the evening of July 27, word reached my ears of suspicious activity reported along the coast. I accompanied by officers Vasquez and Mori went to see what we could find. We arrived at the beach a little after midnight and saw an unidentified vessel off the coast making Morse code signals. We ventured closer and apprehended a German who had been signaling back. We took him to the police station and interrogated him through the night.
In the early morning, he admitted to us that he had been communicating with a submarine looking for a safe place to put ashore. I called in all my off-duty men at dawn. Together we combed the coast three miles north and south from where we arrested the signaler the previous night. After a few hours we discovered a small spit of sand two clicks north of the Hipólito Yrigoyen Bridge.
There were clear signs of heavy activity. The sand bore impressions of a great number of boat launches. In the water, we found dinghies that had been recently scuttled and sunk. Deep tracks indicated that heavy containers had been dragged to awaiting trucks. We followed the tire tracks down the dirt road until we reached the Estancia Moromar.
I decided that speed was paramount, and we entered before hearing from my superiors. We walked down the tree lined road a few miles until we reached the foothills that concealed the buildings on the large estate. When we turned a corner, we were stopped by a roadblock. Four Germans armed with submachine guns confronted us. We had no warrant and were outgunned. I decided to return to the station and call my superiors.
I called the Chief of Police at La Plata. Because of the early hour, I waited two hours until he called back. He told me to forget everything we had seen and to release the German which we immediately did.”
After she had finished, Amara stared at the yellowing paper for a few moments. Her hands trembled. She forced herself to breathe slowly.
Above her, the ceiling shuddered as heavy footsteps caused dust particles to rain down. She froze and realized she only had a few precious moments. She opened her backpack and removed her cellphone. There were too many documents to comb through, so she began t
o photograph as many as possible.
Some of the paper had a smooth gleam like old film. Down the narrow corridor, a door slammed, and she heard the rusty spiral staircase gong as someone made their way down toward her. She frantically took pictures of the rest of the contents in the wooden container and had just returned it to its place when the policeman with the greasy mustache appeared. His face was red, and his eyes were wild.
He spoke so rapidly, Amara could only stare. With a furious combination of hand gestures, he squeezed his bulk by her. She recoiled in disgust as he brushed against her. Papers rained down all around them. He walked a few more steps and then beckoned for her to follow. Confused, she took a few tentative steps forward. He kept making furtive glances past her as though expecting someone to appear at any moment.
When they reached the blank brick wall, he ripped a couple containers off the bottom shelf. For a moment, his chest heaved up and down, his eyes frantic. Then he yelled with an exasperated look and pointed to the opening he had just created. The sudden shriek startled Amara and she jumped backward.
In the distance, she heard the echo of a door slamming shut. The spiral staircase rang in protest as heavy steps quickly descended. Someone was coming.
The policeman pointed again. He looked desperate and frightened.
“Please,” he said, in a thick accent. “Go now.”
Amara glanced behind her and knew she did not want to confront whatever was coming their way. She ducked down and gazed into the space where the containers had been. A circular hole in the brick wall, lead away into a dark tunnel. She pushed her backpack in front of her and squeezed through the hidden entrance. She could feel her pounding heartbeat in her ears.
The moment her feet had disappeared, she heard the policeman replace the bins on the shelf. Without looking back, she hurried forward into the darkness. An unfamiliar voice began a verbal lashing unlike any she had ever heard before. She didn’t understand a single word but didn’t linger to try and translate.
